“We are products of our past, but we don’t have to be prisoners of it.”
– Rick Warren
Where we are as a society, both culturally and technologically, wouldn’t be possible without the advancements developed from previous times. However, in order to understand what led up to the current era, there is no other choice but to refer to the past. The same dynamic occurs within art history as well. Historians can gain knowledge about ancient civilizations by analyzing the art that had been carefully conserved.
Take the Neolithic Revolution. One, if not, the most crucial period of development in human history, the Neolithic Revolution was a time of domestication. From what artifacts were discovered, one can visualize the transition from constant traveling to eventual settlement. For example, Neolithic sculpture and pottery “became bigger, more widespread, and had more functions” as portable sculpture wasn’t needed anymore.
Guan. c.3300–2050 B.C. China. (source)
What is also special about ancient art is the perplexity behind it. Although many artworks had been carefully conserved over time, we can never know the creator’s exact thought process. Plausible theories about the work can inform us about the lifestyle at the time, but most of the time, it’s up to interpretation. One instance was the creation of Stonehenge in England. The details surrounding its construction are completely mysterious. Why was it created? Who decided to make it? There was evidence of it being a burial, yet the rest is left to assumption.
In short, prehistoric art has values that extend beyond the world of art. Each piece of artwork tells a story about the time it is from. From its style and its material, any specific time period can be brought to the present. To understand how the world became to be, we need to look back to the past, and art history plays a significant part in that aspect.
Additional Resources:
- https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ap-art-history/global-prehistory-ap/paleolithic-mesolithic-neolithic-apah/a/the-neolithic-revolution